Award of the G. Whitaker International Burns Prize for 2007

At a meeting held on March 26, 2007, at the seat of the G. Whitaker Foundation, Palermo, after examining the scientific activity in the fields of research, teaching, clinical organization, prevention and cooperation presented by various candidates and in consideration of the high level of the candidates, the Adjudicating Committee unanimously decided to award the prize for 2007 to Professor Naoki Aikawa, General Director Emergency, Critical Care & Trauma/Burn Services, Keio University Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.

The prize is awarded with the following motivation:

“Professor Naoki Aikawa was born in Kanagawa, Japan. Within a very few years of taking his medical degree in 1968, he began to develop an interest in the burn disease and from 1973 to 1976 he attended the Clinical and Metabolic Research Laboratories and the Harvard Medical School Clinical Surgical Service of Burn Trauma at Massachusetts Hospital, directed by Professor J. E. Burke, who defined him one of the best Research Fellows. He later completed his training at Keio University Hospital, Tokyo, holding the position of Resident and Chief Resident in General Surgery. From 1988 to 2003 he held the posts of Associate Director and Director, Emergency, Critical Care & Trauma/Burn Services, Keio University Hospital.

Professor Aikawa’s university teaching career began in 1988, first as Associate Professor and subsequently, in 1992, as Professor, Department of Emergency & Critical Medicine, School of Medicine, Keio University, the position he holds today.

His training stimulated his interest in study and research in various aspects of the burn disease: Initially in the treatment of burn wounds, diagnosis, and the treatment of infection in extensively burned patients and later in the humoral immune response, which he called “a cytokine storm”, the shock and reanimation phase in extensively burned patients, and the prevention of renal damage, damage due to inhalation, and multi-organ failure, as a complication of sepsis.

His findings, published in more than 400 papers, in the leading scientific journals and presented at top-level international congresses, have become points of reference for our knowledge of the basic physiopathological variations that occur in the course of the burn disease. In view of his scientific activity he was elected to the Board of the most prestigious national and international scientific journals.

As Director of Emergency, Critical Care & Trauma/Burn Services, his outstanding clinical skills were expressed on the occasion, among others, of the dramatic Kobe earthquake, when together with his team he treated large numbers of burned and polytraumatized patients in difficult and dramatic circumstances.

As Professor of the Department of Emergency & Critical Care Medicine, School of Medicine, Keio University, he has carried out teaching and training activities at the highest level for numerous young students and doctors; he has also been appointed to the position of member of the Ministry of Education Doctor’s Thesis Approval Committee and member of the Medical Profession Advisory Committee.

Professor Aikawa’s career has been full of official recognitions: Member and Honorary Member of the world’s most authoritative scientific societies, President of the Japanese Society for Burns Injuries (1996), Japanese Society for Critical Care Medicine (2001), Japan Shock Society (2002), American College of Surgeons, Japan Chapter (2001-2002), International Society for Burn Injuries (2002-2004). Academic honours and awards: Everett Idris Evans Memorial Lectureship (American Burn Association), Testimonial for Emergency Medicine and the Firefighter General’s Medal for Merit (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japanese Government).

The official prize giving took place in Palermo at the G. Whitaker Foundation in October 2007 in presence of authorities and representatives of the academic, scientific and cultural world.